Playing the Party...

So I've been playing a little on Party Poker under Kid_Dutch... played about five multitables there in the last couple of days. Got pretty close to the final table in two. Last night was brutal. We're down to 18 players, I've got about 22k in middle position and I get dealt AA. I decide to get tricky and limp in hoping a smaller stack behind me shove their chips in because the blinds are higher than gank on a Saturday morning. So there I am limping in with these dumb aces... pretty much broke the first rule of playing aces. Don't ever limp. Everyone folds and the BB checks to see a free flop. Q97. Now he swings right into it... 3k into the 7.5k pot. He's got me covered by about 30k. My mind is racing with all the hands that can beat me at this point... but I can't for the life of me put him on anything over a Q because I figure he'd try a little slowplaying. So I shove all-in and he calls me lightning quick... with T8.

The thing I don't really like about Party is that once two players are all-in they deal out the cards so fast that you don't really have a chance to see where you're at. So I didn't get that warm feeling of being reasonably ahead to an open-ended straight, and then the crushing feeling of seeing it get there that I usually expect from other sites and live play. Instead I just saw the cards flip over and about a millisecond later I hear the beep congratulating me on my $100 score as the 45k pot goes to the guy with the lamebrain hand. But man, what the hell was I thinking giving him a free shot like that?

So on a happier note, I've been playing the step tournaments on Party for a WSOP seat. Figured I needed to get some single table sats in, because tomorrow that's my main gameplan for getting into some of the WSOP events... go to the Rio and tear up the $175 single table satellites. Started at step 1 for $11. Those step one tourneys are pretty crazy because as long as you stay in the top five of your satellite, you get your money back... and usually five people bust out before 30 hands go by. So you can pretty much just sit back and wait for a free shot at Step 2. By the time you get to Step 3, though, pretty much everyone is just sitting there waiting for people to get knocked out so they have the free shot. So you have to change your strategy a little bit.

So here's how it went down... Step 1... finished 3rd.... Step 1 again... take it down. Step 2... finish 2nd (good enough). Step 3... take it down. So now I'm on Step 4. The buy-in at this level is $540, and I've gotten here on $11. Gotta advance to Step 5, then advance to Step 6... and then flat out win a Step 6 sat to win my seat into the main. God that would be so beautiful.